Description: All for Civil Rights is the first book-length study devoted to black lawyers' struggles and achievements in the state that had the largest black population in the country, by percentage, until 1930 and how these lawyers foregrounded the modern civil rights movement.
Brief description: W. LEWIS BURKE is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the University of South Carolina School of Law. His books include At Freedom's Door: African American Founding Fathers and Lawyers in Reconstruction South Carolina.
Review Quotes: From Reconstruction to the late 1960s, 168 black lawyers were admitted to the South Carolina bar in the United States. Some were former slaves; some hailed from as far away as Barbados; most were educated through apprenticeship. The South Carolina bar once had the highest percentage of black lawyers of any southern state, and South Carolina was one of only two states to ever have a black majority legislature. Examining court processes, trials, and life stories, Burke examines these lawyers' engagement with the legal system.-- "Law & Social Inquiry"